"…would be beyond the scope of this paper"

A now somewhat older post of drdrA’s over at Blue Lab Coats covers a recent manuscript rejection received by the laboratory. In discussing the reviewer criticisms of the manuscript, the post alludes in several places to reviewers asking for a substantial amount of additional work to be conducted. I picked up on this in a brief snark, however the critical issue was better expressed by commenter BugDoc:

I’m really concerned about what appears to be a growing trend for reviewers to ask for years worth of revisions, which could often be an additional paper. We will sometimes pull out the old standby “…beyond the scope of this paper”, but I’m curious to know if there are other rebuttal strategies with which to deflect reviews aimed at having you compress the work of an entire career into one paper.

I concur with the first sentiment, although I’d probably substitute “really, really, really annoyed” for “really concerned” if I were in a venue in which I was inhibited from expressing myself in physioproffian terms.

“…would be beyond the scope of this paper”

A now somewhat older post of drdrA’s over at Blue Lab Coats covers a recent manuscript rejection received by the laboratory. In discussing the reviewer criticisms of the manuscript, the post alludes in several places to reviewers asking for a substantial amount of additional work to be conducted. I picked up on this in a brief snark, however the critical issue was better expressed by commenter BugDoc:

I’m really concerned about what appears to be a growing trend for reviewers to ask for years worth of revisions, which could often be an additional paper. We will sometimes pull out the old standby “…beyond the scope of this paper”, but I’m curious to know if there are other rebuttal strategies with which to deflect reviews aimed at having you compress the work of an entire career into one paper.

I concur with the first sentiment, although I’d probably substitute “really, really, really annoyed” for “really concerned” if I were in a venue in which I was inhibited from expressing myself in physioproffian terms.